Fall colors near Lutsen, October 1st, 2012

I drove my truck up up along the western shore of Lake Superior, known around these parts as “the North Shore” for peak fall colors, Oct 1st. The colors were superb! Bright reds & glowing yellows.

My wife Laura riding “shotgun” and my springer spaniel Daisy rounding up the backseat of my truck. We stayed at Eagles Ridge, the ski condo’s up the hill from Lutsen’s famous lake lodge. Being up along the shores of Superior, of course I had to fill the back of my truck with many 5 gallon buckets of beach rock and more pumpkin size stone I picked up at a rock pit next to Carlton Peak. I used the stones a week later for a new garden along my backyard walkway…Even with 1,000 extra pounds of weight, I still squeaked out 19mpg coming back home, as long as I kept it under 65mph.

Here is the view from near Carlton Peak, this is where I collected a bunch of larger greenish colored crystal rock.

We saw quite a few of grouse along the gravel roads, where I let out Daisy to sniff and flush them up.
This Grouse hopped up on a branch 10 feet off the ground and just watched Daisy sniff for it from above.

I didn’t take this picture of the bear cub, but a friend took it the year before in the same area next to the cabin he was staying at, my 1st question, umm, where’s mama Bear!